Dating Disaster
by suburbs
Summary: Caitlyn tried to help her best friend with his big date, only things don't go as planned.


_Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock._

_A/N: I like to write stories based on real life, so this is based on my experience helping my best guy friend plan his junior prom date. _

I always thought that being best friends with a boy came down to a choice – that moment when you stood at a cross roads and had to decide if you were going to have a crazy, heart-wrenching crush or if you were going to remind yourself that he never remembered to put the toilet seat lid down and that he never rinsed out his own dishes. For me that moment came one night sitting on the couch watching some stupid Simpson's rerun with my best friend Nate. He leaned over to grab popcorn from my bowl (since he had already finished all of his), and as his hand brushed mine, I felt my face flush and butterflies fill my stomach. And I knew that this was a turning point; this moment would be a deciding factor in our friendship.

So I elbowed him in the side and told him to go make himself some more popcorn if he was hungry and to leave mine alone.

I know it wasn't the decision most of you would have made, but I have never been one to take the obvious path. Not to go all Robert Frost on you, but Caitlyn Gellar is a big fan of the road less traveled. And Nate is too important to risk on some teenage romance. Honestly, I've never regretted my decision. Every once in while I have to fight back those butterflies, but I am not sitting in the dark listening to that blasted Taylor Swift song pining over my best friend.

I'm proud that I can honestly say I was thrilled when he finally (with an added, slightly exasperated emphasis on the finally) asked out the girl of his dreams, the one he had been crushing on for months. Seriously, the boy owes me big for all the hours I listened to him gush about how fabulous she was or moan about how she would never like him. But mostly he owes me for giving him the final push he needed to ask her out, which happened to be me telling him to either man up and ask her out or shut up because if I had wanted to have a play-by-play analysis of thirty second conversations I would have been best friends with a girl. Or Nate's bandmate Shane, who took as much time getting ready as a girl.

And I had a blast helping him plan the big date. He wanted it to be special, but not celebrity special. Cause when you are a rock star you can fly girls to Paris for dinner, but that takes no imagination; plus you never know if she's into you for the money or fame or because she really likes you. So he wanted to do something romantic, but that any teenage boy could do. We decided on dinner, a movie and then dessert on a bluff overlooking the city lights, which was why I was currently watching _10 Things I Hate About You_ waiting for a text from Nate to let me know I could go pick up all the dessert things I had set up an hour before. I was hoping that everything went well because I knew he was going to be crushed if it didn't live up to his expectations.

And I hated it when my best friend was sad or disappointed.

Glancing down at my watch, I tried to figure out how much longer I might have to stay up. The movie they went had finshed over an hour ago, and it would take about ten minutes to drive there. How long did it take to eat chocolate chip cheesecake and look at the lights? As I tried to calculate what might be a reasonable amount of time for a romantic moment, my phone beeped. Looking at my phone, I frowned. It wasn't from Nate; it was from his bodyguard, telling me that Nate said to go get the stuff.

Why wasn't Nate texting me? We had asked his bodyguard to wait down at the gate of the private road in case they were followed, but it wasn't like Nate to have someone else do something he could easily have done himself. Shrugging it off, I grabbed my keys and headed out the door.

When I arrived at the property, there was no one there but the gate was unlocked. I drove up the long dirt road until I reached table and chairs, and immediately, I could tell something had gone wrong. One of the chairs was knocked over and there were only a few bites taken from the cheesecake. I felt myself starting to panic. Had the paparazzi found them? I had been so sure that I had been discreet when I made the arrangements. The older couple who owned the property only dealt with me, and they gave no indication that they knew anything about pop culture at all, let alone followed the teen music scene enough to connect a nobody like me to Nate of Connect 3.

Pulling out my cell phone, I dialed Nate's number. When I got his voicemail, I left a message. "Nate, this is me. What happened? Did something go wrong? Call me so I know you're okay!"

I tried not to imagine what might have happened as I loaded up my car. When I hadn't heard back from Nate, I finally called their bodyguard.

"Hi Tom, it's Caity," I said when I heard his deep voice. "What happened tonight? Are Nate and Sarah okay? Did the paparazzi find them? I thought we had been so careful!" I knew I was rambling, but I had just spent twenty minutes alone on a dark cliff worrying so I figured I had an excuse.

"Nate fine," Tom answered. I frowned, noting that could mean that something was wrong with Sarah. "We're at the hospital right now, but everyone is going to be okay. Turns out Sarah's really allergic to some plants, and she had a major reaction to something up there."

I felt sick to my stomach. Poor Nate. He had wanted everything to be so perfect, and his date ended up in the hospital. I felt guilty, like somehow I should have been able to see this, to have avoided this disaster. I knew that was irrational, but I was the best friend; it was my job to keep him from being hurt or disappointed.

"Is she okay?"

"They're giving her some shots and then Nate'll take her home."

"Okay. Well, tell him I got everything, and I'll talk to him later," I said before I hung up.

Once I got home, I tried calling Nate on more time. "Hey, Nate. It's Caity. Tom told me what happened; I'm so sorry! Hopefully she'll give you another chance. Now that you know about the allergies, you can plan something inside. Call me tomorrow so we can figure out when we're meeting for the movie."

He had opted to take Sarah to a romantic comedy, and I had promised to go see the latest spy thriller with him later in the weekend to make up for all the sappiness.

I woke up the next day and immediately checked my phone to see if he had called or texted. By lunchtime, I was starting to worry. It wasn't like him not to call. In fact, I couldn't remember the last time he had gone twelve hours without contacting me. I tried calling him one more time, but when it went to voicemail, I didn't bother to leave a message. Maybe he was licking his wounds from the date-disaster and didn't feel like talking. I would just wait and let him call me.

Except he didn't. He never called. And then at school on Monday, when I walked up towards the bench where he was sitting and talking with Shane and Jason, he glanced over at me and then turned away and kept talking. I know he saw me there because we had made eye contact, but he just ignored me. It felt like I had been slapped across the face. I could feel tears starting to sting my eyes and seriously thought for a moment that I might lose my breakfast right there in the middle of the quad. But there was no way I was going to make a scene. Instead I held my head high, turned and walked away.

I would like to tell you that I put on a smiling face and made it through the rest of the day, but that would be a total lie. On the way to my locker, I ran into Sarah, who stopped me with a worried look on her face.

"Hi Caitlyn," she said, sounding a little nervous. "Do you know where Nate is? I've been trying to call him to apologize for Friday night, but he hasn't been returning my calls." For a brief moment I was filled with hope. If he wasn't calling his dream girl back either, then maybe there was something wrong with his phone. Except that didn't explain why he had just given me the cold shoulder.

Shrugging, I said, "I think he's out in the quad."

My voice sounded strange, like someone else, but apparently Sarah didn't notice because she smiled at me and headed off in the direction I had just come from. And I realized that I couldn't spend the day at school going through my normal routine when everything was so… not normal. I pulled out my phone and called my mom.

"Mom, I need to come home. Could you call the office and excuse me? Tell them I'm not feeling well or something?"

I was a good student; I never tried to cut school, so I knew she would let me come home.

"Are you okay, honey? Did something happen?"

"I just can't be here today," I said with my voice cracking. "Can we talk about it later?"

I could hear the concern in her voice, but was grateful when all she said was, "Go home, Caity. I'll call the school and take care of it. Do you need me to come home from work?"

"No Mom. I'll be okay," I said, not wanting her to miss a day of work because my best friend was turning into a total jerk.

When I got home, I curled up on my bed and sobbed. What had I done? I honestly had no idea what on earth had happened between Friday at school when everything had been awesome and Friday night when he had stopped talking to me. I had done everything we had planned for the date. I had been nothing but supportive. What on earth was his problem?

Eventually I stopped crying and went from being sad to pissed-off. He had no right to treat me that way! It wasn't my fault his stupid date had gone badly. Why on earth was he taking it out on me? To make it worse, I had texts from tons of people at school asking me if I was okay, but still nothing from my "best friend". I splashed some water on my eyes and looked over at the clock. If I hurried, I could make it at the end of lunch and catch my last two classes of the day. I wasn't going to let him have that much power over me.

As I walked onto campus, the first person I saw was Nate, pacing and mumbling to himself. Great – this really wasn't my day. Holding my head high, I walked right past him. I made it a few steps before I heard, "Caitlyn, wait!"

Turning around, I glared at him. "Why?" I hissed. "Why should I wait and talk to someone who didn't have the decency to return my calls and who ignored me today? Give me one reason why I should talk to you Nate! Cause right now I can't think of any!"

"Okay," he said taking a deep breath, "I deserve that."

"You do," I snapped. "Who on earth do you think you are? I would never treat you the way that you treated me the past few days! And I didn't do anything wrong."

I could feel myself starting to tear up again, and was angry at myself for letting him see how much he had hurt me.

"I know, Caity," he said, actually sounding sorry. "And I'm really, really sorry. It wasn't you, I promise. I just had a lot of things to think about, and I wasn't ready to talk to you about everything yet."

"It's not like I would have forced you," I pointed out. "All you had to do was tell me you didn't want to talk about it. But instead you had to act like an ass and ignore me."

"You're right. I was a total idiot," he agreed. "You have every right to be mad at me."

It turned out it was hard to stay mad at someone when they agreed with you and apologized. And looked all cute and contrite. Sighing, I said, "Fine. I accept your apology. Just don't do it again."

His face lit up and he grinned at me. I knew I was giving in way too easily, but it was Nate. We had been friends for way too long to hold a grudge. Plus, he was my best friend, and I sort of needed him around.

"You will pay for this, though, Nate. I get to pick all the movies we watch for the next month," I said firmly. "And you have to make a birdhouse for Jason."

"Deal!" He replied, sounding relieved that he had gotten off that easily.

I heard the bell ring and realized that I was now late for fifth period. Since I wasn't even supposed to be there, I should probably just go home for the rest of the day.

"I'm going to go back home, since we're late already and I don't want a detention," I finally said.

He looked surprised. "Aren't you even going to ask me what happened?"

Shrugging, I answered, "Nope. I figure you'll tell me when you're ready."

"I'm ready."

"Okay. Spill." I knew it would annoy him if I acted like it was no big deal – like I wasn't dying to know what had happened to make him behave like that. He rolled his eyes at me and gestured towards a bench out of the way. I followed him over and sat down.

And waited.

I sat there for several minutes before he said anything. Finally I raised an eyebrow and asked, "Are you telling me this story anytime soon?"

Again with the eye roll, but he did start talking. "So I know Tom told you about the date," he started.

"Just the last part," I replied. "How did things go before the allergy attack? Did you have fun?"

"I guess. It was okay."

I looked at him incredulously. He had been obsessed with the girl for months, and the date was only okay? But I didn't say anything.

He gave me an odd look before saying, "I spent the entire night thinking about how much more fun I had planning the date with you than I had actually going on the date with Sarah."

There was something in his voice and the way he was looking at me that made those stupid butterflies come roaring back to my stomach. Because it almost seemed like he was admitting something, but I was not going to jump to any conclusions.

"I am a lot of fun," I replied with fake modesty.

He chuckled. "You are."

"So how did the realization that I'm so much fun make you want to ignore me?"

"Cause I didn't know what to do with the fact that I wished I was on a date with you instead," he said simply.

Those words pretty much knocked the breath right out of me. Nate, my best friend, had just said that he wanted to go on a date with me. Not hang out. Not be best buddies. Go on a date.

And I had no idea what to say.

I thought I was beyond the crush thing. I had made my decision to just see him as a friend and had been happy with it. But now he was there before me looking adorable and hopeful and nervous all at the same time. I could hear my heart pounding, and I knew I had to say something.

"What?" I choked out. "But I thought she was your dream girl."

"She was. And she's a nice girl, but somehow the reality didn't live up to all my fantasies about her. And as I sat there that night trying to make small talk, all I could think about was how I wished you were there instead. Which isn't that unusual because I always like having you around." I smiled at that. "But it hit me while I was trying to figure out why I wasn't having fun with her that the perfect girl for me had been there all along, and I'd just been too stupid to see it."

"Me?" I asked uncertainly.

"You."

Part of me wanted to just throw my arms around him right then and there, but this was serious. Before I even considered dating him, I needed to know that he had thought it through. I was not willing to lose my best friend over a passing whim. "I don't know Nate. I mean, you've never even seemed to notice I was a girl; I'm having trouble believing that all of a sudden you want to date me. I don't want to be some rebound fling because things didn't work out with Sarah."

He flinched a little, like I had physically hurt him. "You think I didn't notice you? That I haven't been attracted to you since the first day we met?"

"We were twelve, Nate."

"So? I still thought you were pretty."

I could feel myself blush. "Really?" I knew I sounded girly and uncertain, but I didn't care.

"Really!" He blushed a little before admitting, "Sometimes when you sit close to me, I can't concentrate. I just tried to ignore it because I knew you just wanted to be friends."

I reached out and took his hand, and I was shocked at how warm it felt. And how touching him made me feel tingly and a little light-headed. "I might possibly be persuaded to try being more than friends with you," I said lightly.

His head snapped up at my words, and I saw a grin spread across his face.

"Really? And what would I have to do to persuade you?"

But he didn't wait to hear my answer. Instead, he leaned over and gently brushed his lips across mine. Which totally worked. I'm pretty sure he got the message when I wrapped my arms around his neck and deepened the kiss.

I had been happy with my decision to just be his friend, but I was absolutely ecstatic with his decision to be something more.

_A/N2: So yes, she had asthma attack in the middle of dessert in the field overlooking the city lights. And he said he had more fun planning it with me than going on the date. But we never dated – we just shrugged and went caving._


End file.
